Been having some difficulty in obtaining the cast iron wing I needed to mount the router under, as it seems the manufacturers in Taiwan? China? sent a whole stack of the wrong stock, and it will be a couple of months before more arrives.

In the meantime, I have gotten one, and will use one of the standard blanks in the other position, and will decide downtrack whether to replace it with a second router position or not. I may decide instead to revert back to the original plan, and mount the second on the tablesaw after all.

Be that as it may, this is how we are progressing so far.

Underside of Router Wing

This is the underside of the new wing. Not pretty, but then it doesn’t have to be – the machined surface is the important part. There is also a coating to prevent corrosion during delivery on this side, and I’m actually going to leave that in place.

As you can see, there are a number of T Slots to mount the router to. I was originally considering attaching the Triton quick release plate to this, so the router can be removed as necessary, but as 2 of the slots correspond nicely to the two main mounting points on the Triton router, I’m thinking I will go ahead by directly mounting the router instead. I have a couple of high tensile bolts specifically for the task. I may also use the original Triton hold-downs to add some extra support to the router, to clamp it firmly to this base.

Wings laid out

Next, I laid out all the wings that will make up the new top. Looks quite a respectable size doesn’t it! There are holes in each wing that I will use to bolt them together with high tensile bolts.

Cast Iron Router Table

Flipping the wings over, and we get a first look at what the new router table will look like. It is about the size of the table saw. To quote South Park…… SWEEEEET!

There is an insert to fit the hole in the router wing (still to come). If I did place a second router into this table, it would be the 2nd panel from the right that would be replaced. The paint on the sides was obviously applied without adequate cleaning before painting, so it flakes off easily. No matter to me – I will remove it all, as I’d rather see the silver colour of cast iron, than some poorly applied off white paint anyway. The holes in the sides you can see are for affixing the tablesaw fence rails, but I probably won’t be using them. Instead, I may line the sides with a timber strip all round, but won’t decide that until the base is finalised.

Again, the size of the top may seem incredibly excessive, but wait – there is a reason, and it is a gold anodised reason…….

Incra LS Positioner

Sure looks the part now!

After all, when the other main tools in the workshop all have cast iron tops (tablesaw, drill press (although mine now has the Pro Table on top of that), bandsaw, planer (jointer)), why shouldn’t the router table, as one of the main workshop machines? Note the thicknesser was conspicuously absent from that list – have to do something about that!

The Incra is held down by two MagJigs (as I have discussed in the past), and I can now utilise the other MagSwitch tools – the featherboards, other jigs with MagJigs included etc.

So instead of the router table always having to be some shop-made construction from MDF or melamine or similar, or pressed steel, or a wing tacked on the side of another tool like an afterthought, it has serious presence, and joins the 100+kg club as well.

Yes, I know there is such an animal as a shaper table, and this goes a long way towards being a home-constructed version of one of those, but there is one notable difference. Find a shaper table that can take an Incra fence like this puppy 🙂

I also like the significantly large area in front of the cutter – plenty of stock support here.

Router Table with Gifkins Dovetail Jig

And plenty of working area when using jigs, such as the Gifkins Jig pictured here.

The top is missing a point for a starter pin for free-hand routing (when using bearinged router bits), but I have a couple of ideas for that – either drilling and tapping another hole, or going for a router free-hand guide like this one from Professional Woodworkers Supplies

Freehand Router Guide

I’d need to make a minor mod – adding an extra base with a couple of MagJigs included – heh – that just came to me – that will be by far the easiest solution. See – I LOVE having a cast iron router table!

I’d love to have a full blown router lift included – that would turn this router table from the gold plated solution to the diamond solution. Maybe one day….. It wouldn’t be that hard – just replace the existing router wing with one that has the cavity cut for the router lift. They do exist (Carbatec sell one).

The only problem I’ve come across is in the design of the router wing. The back edge is machined flat, the front edge isn’t. They obviously didn’t expect anyone to try to add a wing on that side (why not??), so I will have to decide what to do about that.

A bit of a gap

It means there is a minor gap at the extremities. I have to be carful when bolting this together, as I will need to add spacers in there – if not, I could easily crack the side off while tensioning the bolts – cast iron being rather brittle. It may be too small to be a real problem, there may be enough ductility in the cast iron to cope, but why take the chance?

The Problem

As you can just see in this final pic, the metal of the side is thickest in the middle, and thinner towards the ends.

The optimum solution, and the one I’d prefer, is to take the plate and get the edge machined flat. Now who do I know who has that sort of metal working machinery (ie, a mill)? 😉

If Triton manufacturing was still operational, I might have been able to do it there…. oh well…. there are other alternatives.

So that is the progress on the new router table.

Perhaps not as pretty as Norm’s (New Yankee Workshop), but perhaps it is – I will let you decide 🙂

8 Responses

I’m probably way off beam, but have you considered mounting the 2 router wings side by side lengthways, rather than across the table?
Not sure how relative sizes would match up, but perhaps worth a thought?

Stu,
I have the same router wing attached to my tsc10-hb, but am having difficulty with the router setup. I have slid the bolts down the t track style slots that are cast into the wing and am partially able to clamp the router in place. as you know any router fouls the wheel to angle the table saw blade – not a problem if I wont be using it when using router- but there doesn’t appear to be much cutting depth on the bit if it is placed into the router i.e at full plunge most of my router bits would still have a good proportion of the cutter below the table, any advice?

Hi David, have you considered moving the router wing to the other side of the table? At least you’ll not have the issue with fouling the tilt wheel.

As far as getting depth, I had a look with my Triton router today, and saw that I have no problem with depth of plunge. What brand of router are you using? And what brand(s) of router bits. Really cheap bits often have unusually short shafts which makes it tough.

There are router bit extensions – I quite like the CMT one – has a decent collet on the end of it, and the cost isn’t terrible (around $70). This will give a massive boost to your router range. I always think of them as being a compromise though.

With my Triton, being permanently table mounted, I’ve removed the plastic base, and the template guide – both unnecessarily consume plunge range for no benefit. That alone gains about 5mm of plunge depth.

Hopefully that is enough info to get you started at least – let me know if you need suggestions!

As you know (or at least have answered my questions regarding my multi table build) that I am trying to build a “solid” cast-iron top to use as the platform for my multi table.

Trough my search,I have ran into a minor “glitch”. I’ve found the carbitec router table extension wings but I’m having difficulty trying to find the solid tops without any holes etc in the tops. Ie I could just get 5 router extension wings and bolt them together to get my flat cast iron surface, but this leaves me with a router hole in each of the wings and not just a flat top.

What tablesaw wings did you buy and where did you get them from, that are just a solid, flat top without the router hole? Ive right though the carbitec catalog and a few other places but none come up with the bare tops with having to shell out a small fortune? Granted, the initial blow to the wallet soon fades as long as business stays constantly steady… Where did you find the tops that you have used, it would maybe save a few bucks which could then be spent on nice slabs of quilted maple etc… Each dollar saved equals/adds to very nice premium or prestigious timber to work with and use 🙂 I know you know what I mean! 🙂

In saying that, a lot of the tablesaws I’ve looked at that come with the extended wings but none, afaik, sell them buy themselves. Although I have been wanting a tablesaw for quite a while now, but I don’t know if I should invest in one just yet… It wouldn’t hurt getting a tablesaw though I guess… I need a bigger shed ha ha ha! But for what I do, just a 185mm and a 9″ skill saw along with a level/straight edge has been fine sofar for the work I do, so I am tossing up getting a tablesaw…

Anyway, do you know what the tablesaw extension wings you have used for this awesome router table are?

Sorry for the long post and all the questions! Just want to do this right the first time! I’m not sure whether to buy just the wings alone (5 of them) or buy a tablesaw and build off that with say 3 or 4 extra wings? Decisions decisions…

Thanks heaps in advance for not only your time to read this post, but for the info and help in advance if you can provide it!

The wings I bought are available from Carbatec, but not normally a catalog item. They are the wings for the TSC10HB tablesaw. Carbatec do stock them and can sell them separately. They are solid (no hole for the router). I then added one of the router wings, also for the TSC10HB to mount the router to (although I did get it machined to fit the Incra plate). The reason I went with a router wing and still machined it, is the router wing is slightly wider and therefore had enough meat left after cutting the router plate opening.

As I can’t see the rest of your post while writing this, I’ll send this then check if you had any more questions!

With regards to whether to get a tablesaw. While I will temper my answer based on I don’t know what you are specifically wanting to do with woodworking, my general response would be “absolutely”.

I have a Festool saw and rail, which is brilliant btw – I love it, and it is perfect for the applications I use it for. But still, the tablesaw is one of the hardest working machines in my workshop. And these days, as many know, I have upgraded, and upgraded to the point I now have the SawStop Professional, and I love that saw.

With the luxury of space (and even if you don’t), I still prefer my router table and tablesaw to be separate, but it doesn’t have to be.

Even when I had a very small shed (and this is going back to only having a 3m x 3m – F*ck knows how I fitted!!!!), I had a tablesaw (Triton), router table (Triton), and a lathe (GMC)! I did try having a second router for a while, mounted with the tablesaw (once I upgraded to the TS10L tablesaw), but that router never got used, I always used the separate router table for all my jobs.

These days, space is a bit more available (at least not as tight as it was!), but I still have to justify each machine and the footprint it uses, and still the separate router table has its own space in the workshop.